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Cut Out with lots of Swarm Cells

Just got back from doing a cut out from the floor of someone's shed. At first I saw masses amounts of drone and more drone brood. I thought great a queenless worker laying hive. But the more and more I got into the hive, I begin to run into worker brood. There were more drones in the hive than I've ever seen though, seemed almost like 20-30% of the bees.

As I was rubber-banding brood into frames I found quite a few swarm cells. I was careful not to damage them just incase the queen had already left. As I was checking I found a queen. I say a queen because towards the end of cutting out brood I found a few opened swarm cells. I put her in a queen catcher and set her to the side. All in all, I put 1 1/2 medium boxes of brood into boxes

I am thinking this must have been a virgin queen because they weren't flocking to her. A lot of the bees were still in the hole where I cut out the hive.

I didn't stick around to check if the bees were going to start working their way into the hive that i left. I had to get back, and the place was a 40 minute drive away.

If I have a virgin queen will they still be attracted to her, since I left her in the catcher rubber-banded next to the brood? Or should I just try to vacuum up the remaining bees tomorrow night? Can I do anything with a virgin queen?

Re: Cut Out with lots of Swarm Cells

BackYard - I'm no expert, and I'm surprised that nobody posted an answer (probably just missed it like I did), but I would think that they would stick with the virgin if that's the only queen you pulled out of there. Sounds like you've got PLENTY of brood to get them through her mating process. As I'm sure you are doing, keep an eye on things and watch for fresh eggs/larvae (indicating you got a laying queen) or wait for her to mate and (hopefully) return (approx 2-3 weeks after she emerged). You might see about having another queen at the ready just in case things don't work out. What is the current status, since it's been several days since you posted???